Birmingham Book Festival

Hello all...

The offices of the Birmingham Book Festival have been the setting for some very interesting conversations this month..

There has been plenty of talk about new books, and the Festival team (well, Jonathan and I) have some great recommendations for you:

1. Salt and The Wake by Jeremy Page - I am incredulous that two months ago I hadn't heard of Jeremy and now I am impatient for a third novel - not bad considering the second (The Wake) isn't published until July. Jeremy's prose is lyrical, beautiful, his landscapes and atmospheres multi dimensional. There is a gorgeous sense of the East Anglian settings he often uses, you can almost smell them. Tales of tragedy and human spirit, heart warming, original, not quite like anything I've read before.

Reminded me of: Annie Proulx (The Shipping News), Patrick Gale (Rough Music).

2. A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth - I love this book. It is like the dark thoughts you had at school, all the things you think that you wonder if anyone else thinks too - but worse. A slow, unashamed descent into a hilarious, terrifying kind of life that you just can't assuage your interest in. Perfectly pitched and just the right amount of crazy to be believable. Can't wait for more from Jenn.

Reminded me of: Sophie Hannah (Little Face), Helen Cross(Spilt Milk, Black Coffee).

** Jenn and Jeremy will be appearing at the Festival on Saturday October 24th**

3. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters - the new book from Ms Waters is both very like and very unlike her previous ones. If she were seeking to depart from her identity as a gay writer then this book certainly achieves that, but with enough of a deep nostalgia for the same wartime/postwar England we loved in The Night Watch that it is sure to satisfy any and all of her audiences. The story is tightly woven and expertly unravelled, the characters vivid amidst the spectral prowess of the real hero of the book - the decaying country manor at the heart of everyone and everything. Very, very good.

Reminded me of: Sadie Jones (The Outcast)

Other books we loved (Because there isn't room to review them all....):
Becoming Drusilla by Richard Beard.
Heartland by Anthony Cartwright
The Outcast by Sadie Jones
Notes On An Exhibition by Patrick Gale
Spilt Milk, Black Coffee, by Helen Cross
Black Rock by Amanda Smith

If you've read a fantastic book, email me a review and I'll make sure it gets up here...

In other news...

We now have a Twitter account - look us up if you're savvy at that kind of thing - we're still not (but we are better than we used to be!)

We have many writers events promised/provisionally programmed for October including: